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In addition to our website, you can also listen to our #EuropeanBootstrappingChampions podcast on the following platforms: Spotify, Google podcasts and Apple podcasts.
Kristofs Blaus is the Co-founder of Nutrameg, a healthtech startup creating patent pending nutrition technology for weight management and fitness, used by millions of people worldwide.
One of the first pieces of advice Kristofs shared with us was to Go work for a big company before you do it on your own. You will learn so many things. Don’t fall for the myth that large companies are stupid and slow. They are very smart actually. Try and make some years in a big company and it will be worth it and it will go a long way.
He continued with the idea according to which Things that you can measure will improve, so figure out what you want to improve and what are the measurements, the metrics behind them. And always pay attention, because what you want to improve constantly changes. This was the reason behind some of my biggest mistakes, when I took some situations and metrics for granted… Never do that. Always have your eyes open and follow your company very closely and constantly question whether you are looking at the right metrics or you should think of something else. And also, teach your team to think like that. Teach them out of disappointments of change. Be very strict about always monitoring and paying attention and changing things when needed.
Listen to more of Kristofs’ pieces of advice in his interview by accessing this link.
Andreas Millonig, Chief Operating Officer of IMMOunited GmbH, gives us an insight on how they manage their products and why it is so important to always introduce new ones on the market: Every two or three years we need a new product in our company, which really helps us grow. Don’t stop from inventing and developing new products. One of our major benefits is that we don’t make our products with high demand more pricey, but instead we offer more services and by doing this we enlarge our revenues and company.
From the foregoing we can see the reason why IMMOunited is the market leader in the online provision of land register and real estate data throughout Austria. Its aim is to make individual information about real estate objects easily and conveniently available online throughout Austria.
A team of more than 70 employees is currently working together with more than 2,000 customers and 10,000 users. Andreas believes that the team is very important to everything you do. Without a team nothing works. Not everybody is that elemental to our business but there are some people who really contribute a lot, either with knowledge or sales or so on. But it’s not just me. That’s something I really learned from driving this business. I’m really thankful for the team I’m working with.
You can find many other wise words from Andreas in his interview.
Bernhard Niesner, Co-Founder & CEO of Busuu (one of the world’s leading mobile apps for language learning), encourages people to take the money when it’s being offered, especially when it’s from top investors. There’s never been a better time to fund a business, to become an entrepreneur. I encourage people to go for it. You need to have the right attitude, the right skills and also be willing to sacrifice. This is not a walk in the park. You have to prioritize the business.
With more than 100m+ users and a learning system which combines human interaction with artificial intelligence, you have to take into account various factors. As advice, Berhnard thinks that Bootstrapping teaches founders to be capital efficient, keeping their feet on the ground. Then, it is true that a moment comes when you have a unique opportunity to gain market share. You have to think big. To be capital efficient and then when the opportunity arises to think really big and have the money, take the money and grow super fast. From my experience it’s very hard to find both these skills in one person.
To gain more knowledge from Bernhard’s experience we invite you to listen to his interview.
Bogdan Bocșe, managing partner of Knosis. ai and Envisage. ai shares with us that the hardest lesson I’ve learned, especially for someone who wants to build and see things getting done, is patience. The patience to listen, the patience to do what your partner thinks, even if you disagree, the patience not to get upset and the patience to be grateful for the trust of others.
Bogdan’s companies focus on quality-controlled machine learning data sets, respectively on end-to-end solutions for computer vision and face recognition. He is also leading the open source, non-profit DeepVISS initiative, aimed at bridging the gap between industry and academia in visual machine learning. As you can listen throughout his interview, Bogdan is a true believer that investing in education about digital technology and the history of technology is something every company should do. Invest in tools, in care, in listening to those children and their ideas. Have patience to prepare the next generation.
Another one of BogdanTrust what you can do with your hands and with your eyes closed. Trust your hands, not your eyes. Our eyes are so easily deceived by what's sparkly and not just in terms of colors, but also in terms of messaging and intention: Invest now or you’ll miss out.
Chalid El Ashker is the Founder and CEO of Spacewise, a pioneering all-in-one solution for leasing of flexible spaces. Chalid believes that when you bring a solution to the market timing is more important than most people think. That solution could be a super innovative and creative one, but if the timing is not right, it will not be on the customer's side. Identifying whether the timing is right is crucial and for that one needs to talk to customers and investors or people with very good and deep knowledge of the market. Making assumptions just because you like that solution or you believe that product is great, it doesn't mean that it will actually work.
In his interview, he also states that When seeking investment, look for smart money. Look to build a great team. To build a team of like-minded individuals that have strong opinions I think that's really important. It doesn't make sense to just have yessayers but people that have their opinions and defend these opinions. The best ideas should win. And not just because someone is the founder or the first employee. I think that's very important.
Marius Donhauser, founder and CEO of hotelkit, advises everyone to go out with the product as fast as possible and get honest market feedback. Have a look at the data, constantly talk to the clients and ask them questions: how it’s being used, its functionality and ask them how they see the product in two or three years.
Hotelkit is an All-in-One Hotel Operations Platform that enables hotel teams to manage, supervise, delegate and communicate via one comprehensive platform, anywhere, any time, on any device.
The platform is used by some of the most important hotel chains in the world and tens of thousands of hotel employees. But to get to this point, especially when you bootstrap, it is very important to be close to your market and have a look at its needs, because you simply cannot afford making that many mistakes.
Learn more about Marius’ entrepreneurial journey and find out more thoughts on bootstrapping.
We will conclude this article with Reinier Huisman and a few wise words he shared with us.
Reinier Huisman, CEO & Founder of Expertwired. com states one fundamental fact, relevant to many businesses, or entrepreneurs starting their career: You have to enjoy the journey. Once you stop enjoying it, you’re in a bad space. Even more than that, If you assume you know it all, it is the worst thing you can do.
Expertwired. com is the world’s only expert knowledge marketplace and access to real-time market insights. With all that experience, Reinier believes that In order to disrupt an industry like this you need to be able and be ready to invest a couple of years at least to overcome the volume threshold that you need. It’s a learning environment, especially when you’re disrupting an industry with new models, technology that nobody has. There is no handbook to tell you how to do it, so everyday you will have to pivot and adjust and see what your priorities are. Some things might be a great idea, but then don’t work out and you’ll have to find a different way.
According to Reinier, you need to have fundraising ability, understanding how to get money. If you don’t, the chances of you getting around to be able to develop a product are small and you’ll still run out of money in most cases. At the same time we rely on experts. That is why we think they should earn the most money: because they are providing the knowledge. We give experts more than 80% of the value of what clients pay.
Reinier shared with us interesting insights about his company development. Learn more by listening to his episode.
If you are a European entrepreneur or you know anyone who would be suitable for our podcast, let us know.
* The above-mentioned entrepreneurs are part of the #EuropeanBootstrappingChampions podcast. Episodes are available on our website, Spotify, Google podcasts and Apple podcasts. More similar blog posts will be coming soon.
